


snb

by EmeraldTrash666



Series: Kaiba Gets Dragged Kicking And Screaming Into Character Development Out Of Sheer Spite For The Anime Writing [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Comedy, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season 5 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 01:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18928483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTrash666/pseuds/EmeraldTrash666
Summary: [snb] (v. intrans.) be healthy, well, become well, recover {S29 N35 D58 Y1v}-Paul Dickson's Dictionary of Middle EgyptianAncient Egypt is a merchandising gimmick for casinos, Atem is strongly opinionated, and Kaiba has some trauma to work through. (Sequel to wHyt, but can be read as a standalone fic.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So remember when I said I was gonna get right back to working on Slightly Haunted? Yeah, I lied. Here's more Kaiba. Fortunately for my SH fans, this should be the last of it, lmao.  
> I would like to give a special shoutout to YouTube for allowing me to experience places I would never step foot in in a million years, such as abandoned warehouses or ridiculous themed casinos.

The concept, like so many things in Yuugi’s life, started out deceptively simple.

The _International Gaming Expo 1999_ was to be a conference for game designers, critics, and enthusiasts from around the world to discuss the future of gaming, and- being the current top ranked champions of Duel Monsters, which had quickly become a major power in the game scene- Naturally, Yuugi and Atem had been invited to attend (along with Kaiba, of course). The event was to be hosted in Las Vegas, at the Luxor hotel and casino.

And therein lay the problem.

No one quite knew what to expect as Yuugi and Atem stood in the airport lobby, luggage in hand, facing away from the boarding area and towards their family.

“You two packed enough snacks, right?” Yuugi’s mom checked worriedly, simultaneously glancing at the clock behind them.

“Yup!” Yuugi replied, tugging on the straps of his backpack for emphasis.

“And you’re sure you have your phone chargers? Both of you?”

“Yes,” Yuugi and Atem answered simultaneously.

“And you have your medication?”

Yuugi sighed. “Yes, mom, I double checked everything before we left, I promise.”

“Honey, don’t you think you’re worrying a bit too much?” Yuugi’s grandpa pointed out gently.

Yuugi’s mother huffed. “It’s only natural to be worried, my babies are going to another country all by themselves!” she insisted.

“Mom, we’re not babies!”

“Technically we’re adults in America,” Atem pointed out, shrugging.

Yuugi’s mom shook her head. “Uh-uh. You’re both babies,” she repeated. With little warning, she pulled both of them in for hugs, planting messy, affectionate kisses on their cheeks before they could escape.

“Eugh! _Mom!”_

“Gross, cut it out!”

Yuugi’s mom only laughed as she reluctantly conceded, letting the two go- although not without ruffling their hair.

“So, do you two have any plans other than the expo?” Grandpa asked casually, as Yuugi and Atem made various expressions of disgust towards their mother’s… enthusiasm.

“Not really,” Yuugi sighed after a moment, shaking his head and wiping his cheek. “I know the hotel has a pool, so we might-”

“I have a suggestion,” Grandpa interrupted, and the look on his face made it clear he was scheming something. Yuugi and Atem exchanged mildly suspicious glances.

“Alright, what is it?”

Grandpa grinned. “Well, you know what legendary site is in Nevada…”

“...Nuclear weapons testing?” Atem guessed.

“Well, that too,” Grandpa admitted with a shrug. “But more specifically, I was thinking… You two should try to find the E.T. graveyard!” he suggested excitedly.

Yuugi put a hand on his face in exasperation.

“Grandpa, that’s in New Mexico,” Atem pointed out. “Assuming it even exists.”

“Yeah, and even if it did, we wouldn’t go looking for it,” Yuugi added.

Yuugi’s grandpa frowned slightly. “Why not?”

“Because, we’re not just gonna go digging random holes in the desert looking for garbage! If you want a copy of E.T. that badly, just buy one online!” Yuugi exclaimed with a sigh.

Grandpa huffed, crossing his arms. “It’s not about _having_ it, it’s about the experience! Sheesh, kids these days have no sense of adventure. This is the problem with the video game era,” he muttered, shaking his head in disappointment.

Yuugi’s mom raised an eyebrow. “Dad, I don’t think that’s a problem with video games. I think you’re just vastly overestimating how universal an experience treasure hunting is,” she pointed out.

Grandpa only gave an offended snort in response.

“Anyway, we should probably head to the gate,” Yuugi decided before the conversation could continue any further.

The others nodded in acknowledgement, as Yugi and Atem grabbed their suitcases and prepared to leave.

“Have fun, boys,” Grandpa said with a cheerful wave. “You’ll have to tell me all about the expo!”

“We will!” Atem promised, smiling.

“Call when you get off the plane,” Yuugi’s mom added. “Stay out of trouble, alright, you two? No committing crimes, you hear?”

“We won’t!”

“No promises!”

Yuugi turned towards  Atem with a blank expression.

“What? I’m just being honest,” Atem told him, shrugging.

Yuugi sighed and shook his head in dismay. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get into trouble,” he assured his mother as he began to turn away. “See you later.”

“Bye, have fun, be good! Take pictures!” Yuugi’s mom called after them as they walked.

“Bye, kids! have a safe flight!”

Atem turned back and waved over his shoulder as he followed Yuugi towards the boarding area, glancing back every now and then until their family disappeared from view. As they looked around for somewhere to sit after loading their luggage onto the conveyor, a different set of familiar voices caught Yuugi and Atem’s attention.

“You’ll bring me back presents, right?”

“Of course I will. What kind of brother do you take me for? ...Did you want something specific?”

“Candy! American candy is so good- Oh, hey guys!” Mokuba called out, waving as Atem and Yuugi approached.

“Hey Mokuba! And hello, Kaiba-kun,” Yuugi said politely, sitting down on the bench across from them.

“Yo,” Atem added.

“Hey,” Kaiba said with a curt nod of acknowledgement, and then turned back towards Mokuba. “Mokuba, you _do_ remember what happened the last time you had American candy, right?”

“That… Is a risk I’m willing to take,” Mokuba said with a serious nod.

Atem raised an eyebrow in concerned curiousity. “Dare I ask..?”

Kaiba sighed. “The problem with American candy is that it’s loaded with high fructose corn syrup,” he explained. “So you eat it, and it tastes like the best candy you’ve ever had, and then an hour later you wish you were dead.”

“Yeah, and then you do it all over again the next day,” Mokuba finished cheerfully.

“Oh yeah, I’ve done that when grandpa’s friend sent him some candy,” Yuugi recalled. “We should get some!”

Atem blinked in surprise. “That… sounds kind of horrifying. No offense.”

“It is, but it’s _so_ worth it,” Mokuba said with a wistful sigh. “So you’ll bring me back candy, right, big brother?”

“Sure, but if you eat it all in one go you’ll get no sympathy from me.”

Before Mokuba could attempt to defend his inevitable poor life choices, the airport’s PA system came on with a loud _ding-dong!_

_“Attention: Japan Airlines flight 1621 to Las Vegas will now begin boarding from gate C. All passengers, please proceed to the boarding area to await further instructions.”_

“Ah, that’s us,” Yuugi realized as the announcement repeated itself. “Guess it’s time to go.”

As Yuugi, Atem, and Kaiba stood up to leave, Mokuba stood up as well. He wrapped his arms around his brother’s waist in a tight hug.

“Bye, big brother. Have fun, steal all the other companies’ secrets, don’t forget to bring me candy,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“I know, I know,” Kaiba answered, smiling almost uncharacteristically gently as he returned the embrace, and then ruffled Mokuba’s hair. “I’ll call you when we land. Don’t cause too much chaos while I’m gone,” he added with a slight laugh.

“I’ll try,” Mokuba teased, gently breaking away from the hug. He then ran over to Yuugi and Atem, giving each of them a quick hug in turn, both of which were returned with equal warmth.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow as he watched Atem give Mokuba an affectionate pat on the head, frowning slightly at the scene.

“Why do _they_ get goodbye hugs?” he muttered somewhat bitterly.

“Because,” Mokuba answered, offering no further explanation. “Why, are you jealous or something?”

Kaiba scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”

“Good, ‘cause you’re still my favorite person in the whole world,” Mokuba said quietly, giving one last quick hug for good measure. “Now go crush the competition!”

Kaiba nodded, a hint of affection behind one of his trademark confident smirks. “With pleasure. See you, Mokuba.”

With that, he turned to follow the others.

“Bye, have a safe trip!” Mokuba called out, watching as the plane began to board, returning the friendly goodbye wave Yuugi sent him from the ramp.

A short while later, the plane was off, leaving the towering Tokyo skyline far behind.

* * *

The world seemed to fade away as Atem stared blankly out the window at the earth below- Not terribly interested, yet too entranced to look away, watching the hypnotic movements of the water. There’d been nothing below them but ocean for quite some time now; He could make out some differences in hue here and there, different currents perhaps, but there was hardly anything interesting to look at otherwise. He’d hardly thought there could be so much ocean in the world, and yet there it-

“Aaah, come on!” Yuugi exclaimed, breaking Atem’s train of thought as he huffed in frustration, shaking his Gameboy slightly.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” Atem wondered, instinctively peeking over Yuugi’s shoulder curiously.

Yuugi sighed. “Suicune got away again.”

“Ah, that sucks.”

“Why don’t you just use the Master Ball?” Kaiba muttered from the aisle seat. In one hand, he held a portion of a sandwich; In the other, a pencil, making notes on something-or-other in a notebook on the tray table in front of him.

“I’m trying to catch it without a Master Ball,” Yuugi explained. “Just as a challenge, you see. I’m hoping to catch it in a Love Ball, but I’ll take whatever works.”

“That seems like kind of a waste of time.”

Atem gave an amused snort. “Waste of what time? We’ve got…” He paused, glancing at his watch. “Nine and a half hours.”

“Fair enough, I guess,” Kaiba conceded with a nod as he finished his sandwich. “Speaking of which… You. Duel me,” he demanded, pointing almost accusatorily at Atem, leaning in front of Yuugi.

Atem shrugged. “Sure. Aibou, switch seats with me,” he requested.

Yuugi obeyed without comment, his eyes remaining glued his Gameboy even as he stood up, climbed over Atem, and sat back down in the window seat.

The three of them remained that way for quite some time: Yuugi frowning in concentration at his game, Kaiba and Atem calmly dueling from their seats, the plane bouncing lightly as it continued on its watery path. After a while, the duel evidently came to a close, if the way Kaiba slammed his hands on the tray in frustration was any indication.

“Oh, fuck you!”

“I don’t know what you expected, really,” Atem said calmly, although his expression was more than a little smug. “You’ve never beaten me before. I’m not sure what made you think being on a plane would make any difference.”

“No. Shut up. Fuck you,” Kaiba spat again. “Yugi! Duel me!”

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

Yuugi once again hopped out of his seat to switch with his so-called “other self”, from the window seat to the middle. The fluidity with which they moved around each other was uncanny; Even with no communication whatsoever, the two moved almost as a single unit, never once getting in each other’s way. As they did so, Atem quickly scooped up his cards, arranging the deck back into a neat stack once he was sitting down, and placed it back in its box with gentle care.

Atem watched the duel for a while, glancing at the cards in Yuugi’s hand every now and then. Yuugi and Kaiba’s duel was just as intense as ever- even when played quietly on small tables like any other game, rather than with full scale holograms in a huge stadium- Yet Atem had no doubts as to what the outcome would be, and gradually began to zone out, too accustomed to the familiar decks.

“I think I’m gonna take a nap,” he told Yuugi after a little while.

“What, and miss out on this fascinating view?” Yuugi replied sarcastically, gesturing to the predictably empty ocean outside the window. “Suit yourself, I guess.”

Atem snorted. “Yeah, wake me if you see the kraken,” he teased in response.

Despite their jokes, little occurred to make the flight more interesting. Everything went almost disappointingly according to expectations; Atem soon fell asleep, the view outside the window remained much the same as it had been, and (naturally, much to Kaiba’s frustration) Yuugi won the duel.

“Don’t think this is over, Yuugi,” Kaiba growled ominously as he gathered up his deck.

“Oh, I know,” Yuugi replied, tucking his own deck neatly away into his bag, moving slowly so as not to disturb Atem. “Thank you for the duel, it was fun.”

Once his deck was put away, Yuugi settled back against his seat, sighing slightly. He glanced over at Atem, and couldn’t help but smile;There was something endearing about the way he slept, hands curled up in his lap, his lips slightly parted as his head rested on Yuugi’s shoulder. No doubt by the time he awoke, Atem would have a sore neck and Yuugi would have a drool-soaked shirt, yet he just couldn’t bring himself to move him. Instead, he quietly slipped his arm behind Atem’s back, stroking his shoulder affectionately.

“...I suppose sleeping isn’t a bad idea for all of us,” Kaiba said quietly, leaning forwards slightly to look at Atem, an almost amused expression on his face.

“Wait,” Yuugi interrupted before Kaiba could get settled. “Kaiba-kun, I… I think you and I need to have a little talk.”

Kaiba paused, raising an eyebrow at Yuugi. “Fine, I’ll bite. What do you want?”

Yuugi was quiet at first, taking a deep breath, mentally steeling himself for what he was about to say.

“...As you know, the Luxor hotel is ancient Egypt themed,” he began.

“Unfortunately,” Kaiba muttered in response, rolling his eyes. “I think the universe has stopped outright trying to kill us and moved on to incessant humiliation.”

Yuugi gave an amused snort. “You might be right about that, I’ll admit. But in any case, I don’t know how well this will go for Atem, so…”

Yuugi’s expression seemed to grow a bit more solemn, his voice dropping to a quiet, serious tone.

“I expect you to be nice to him. And no matter what he does or says- no matter how silly it sounds to you- You do _not_ invalidate his feelings. Understand?”

Kaiba looked taken aback by this command, crossing his arms and glaring in displeasure. “Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do like that?”

“I’m the one who _didn’t_ put you in a coma for half a year,” Yuugi answered, unsettlingly direct. “Maybe that’s something you ought to keep in mind.”

A passing cloud cast a dark shadow over Yuugi’s face, and for a brief moment, it became frighteningly clear just how much he and Atem truly _were_ one and the same. Kaiba felt himself shiver slightly.

“...Why are you so angry at me, anyway?” Kaiba wondered quietly. His voice was little more than a meek whisper, and he thanked the powers that be for the fact that no one was around to see just how intimidated he’d been by sweet little Yuugi Mutou.

“You _know_ why,” Yuugi replied darkly, before slipping on a pair of headphones. “Enjoy your nap, Kaiba-kun.”

With that, Yuugi turned away, blocking out the outside world and leaving Kaiba to meditate on the fact that he just had, in fact, been threatened by Yuugi… As well as the fact that, yes, he did know why. Loathe as he was to admit it, he knew exactly what he had done to earn Yuugi’s wrath.

Yuugi was referring, he knew, to the “incident” several months ago, at Domino City’s regional championship Duel Monsters tournament. After being told one too many times to let go of the past, Atem had suddenly snapped. The result had been a sudden shouting match, a lot of tears, and a lot of thinking left for Kaiba to do.

In all honesty, Kaiba hadn’t even realized that Atem had been so bothered by it in the first place. Yet Atem’s words from that day were burned into his memory, still haunting him upon occasion, late at night when all regretful memories surfaced.

_“Would you be happier if I really had died back then?!”_

_“Is that all I am to you? A ‘disruption’?”_

_“Is that what you fucking want, Kaiba?!”_

Ever since that day, the Mutous had suddenly been on… much more distant terms with Kaiba. Although they’d never quite been close, with Kaiba rejecting their repeated attempts at “friendship”, they’d never actively _avoided_ him either, not until the Incident. Despite being, apparently, close friends with Mokuba, Yuugi and Atem no longer invited Kaiba to hang out with their little group, nor did they try to make cheerful conversation with him when they wound up together for events; They weren’t unkind, they didn’t shun him, but it was clear that they had no desire to go out of their way to make friends anymore.

...Kaiba frowned as he stared at his cards, feeling a sudden apprehension about the days to come.

* * *

_“Man, it’s crazy that they built this whole casino on a boat,” Atem commented, watching the clouds go by as the reed boat bounced gently on the waves._

_“I know, right?” Mana agreed, dangling her feet playfully over the side of the boat. “I wonder how they did it…”_

_“I’m gonna play Time Wizard,” Jounouchi decided, standing on the deck behind Atem and Mana._

_Yuugi gasped. “Jounouchi-kun, no! You can’t, you know what’ll happen!” he exclaimed, and shook his head with a wide-eyed expression of horror._

_“But I hate casinos!”_

_“I know, but that doesn’t mean you can erase the whole thing,” Yuugi insisted. “Come on, it’s only for a few days. Play nice.”_

_Jounouchi sighed. “Fine, whatever. If it’ll make you happy, Yuugi.”_

_Meanwhile, Atem sat down next to Mana, watching the ocean go by so far beneath them. He rested his head on her shoulder and dangled his legs along with her, feeling the cold water chill his ankles in a steady stream._

_“What are you going to wear to the party, Atem?” Mana asked._

_“Dunno yet,” Atem replied, shrugging._

_“Hmm… I think you should wear that one skirt that’s super swooshy,” Mana suggested. “It’d be good ‘cause it’s nice and cool for the weather, but it’s also goth, you know?”_

_Atem shook his head. “I would, but I can’t. Kaiba would kill me.”_

_“Who cares what Kaiba thinks? You should just do it.”_

_Atem sighed. “I know, but I don’t like it when Kaiba gets mad at me. He’s always so-”_

**_“Yes!”_ ** _Yuugi shouted, right in Atem’s ear, causing Atem to jump in surprise. His voice felt unnaturally loud, louder than the whole world around him, and Atem wondered just what exactly had caused Yuugi to-_

“Nnnh..?” Atem slurred as he slowly opened his eyes. His head felt heavy as he lifted it up, his memories of… Whatever he’d even been dreaming about already fading from his mind. (Mana had been there, maybe..? He’d already forgotten.)

“Oh, sorry, I forgot you were sleeping,” Yuugi whispered, giving Atem an apologetic pat.

“‘S okay,” Atem yawned. “What’s up?”

“I finally caught Suicune!” Yuugi replied excitedly.

“Oh, nice!” Atem congratulated him. “What ball did you wind up catching it in?”

“A Friend Ball!”

Atem gave a slow nod of approval. “Of course… Suicune must have sensed your friendship,” he decided.

Yuugi smiled. “I guess so!”

On Yuugi’s other side, however, Kaiba sighed in exasperation.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he muttered, not looking at either Yuugi or Atem as he typed rapidly on a laptop computer. “A Friend Ball has the exact same catch rate as a normal Pokeball. All it does is set the captured Pokemon’s friendship to 200. Suicune is nothing but data, it can’t ‘sense your friendship’,” he insisted, his tone as matter-of-fact and dry as always.

“Kaiba-kun, why do you hate fun?” Yuugi asked with strained politeness.

Kaiba said nothing in response, continuing to type away at his computer.

“He’s just saying that to be a jerk,” Atem realized after a few minutes. “Kaiba’s just as emotional about video games as anyone else. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be so into Duel Monsters.”

Kaiba continued his relentless typing for a moment before pausing, still staring at the screen, as if thinking about what to write next.

“...Perhaps,” he decided, the slightest bare hint of a smile on his face.

“Anyway, how long was I asleep?” Atem wondered. He glanced out the window; Yep, still ocean.

“Only about an hour or so,” Yuugi answered.

Atem let out a long groan of frustration. “Why does America have to be so far _away?_ I’m getting bored,” he whined. “And I think there’s an air vent under my seat… My feet are weirdly cold,” he added, frowning slightly and glancing down at his shoes.

“Do you want to switch with me?”

Atem frowned, momentarily surprised by the question. “Huh..?”

“Switch _seats,”_ Yuugi clarified, picking up on Atem’s confusion. “Do you want to switch seats with me?”

Atem blinked. “Oh, uh… Sure.”

He shook his head in disbelief at himself as he and Yuugi climbed over and around each other, trading seats. His confusion, silly though it was, was understandable; He’d often heard (or used) the phrase “switch with me” in a much different context, during the time he and Yuugi had spent sharing a body.

Being a person, he thought, was something he might never fully get used to.

* * *

“Why do you have a Gengar named ‘Princess’?” Kaiba questioned almost sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

“Because she’s a princess. Why do _you_ have a Gengar named…” Atem frowned at the screen. “...’Fart Man’..?”

“Because Mokuba traded it to me,” Kaiba sighed.

Atem gave a slow nod of understanding.

“Guys! _Guys!”_ Yuugi interrupted suddenly, gasping in excitement, practically shoving Atem in his haste to get his attention.

“What?” Atem and Kaiba responded in unison.

Yuugi pointed enthusiastically towards the window. “Look!”

“It’s… a cloud,” Kaiba observed, frowning in confusion. “What’s so-”

“Woah!” Atem gasped, leaning across Yuugi to get a better look.

Kaiba’s unspoken question was soon answered, as the plane tilted to the side, revealing what had so thoroughly caught Yuugi’s attention: A distant shoreline, the beach below them dotted with tiny landmarks like sprinkles on a cake.

“That must be California,” Kaiba realized. “Welcome to America, I suppose.”

Atem exchanged bright-eyed glances with Yuugi, grinning excitedly. “If we’re finally in America, then that must mean-”

“We won’t be landing for another three hours or so,” Kaiba interrupted before Atem could finish.

Atem groaned and dropped his head down onto Yuugi’s shoulder.

“You’ve crushed my dreams, Kaiba,” he muttered, voice muffled by Yuugi’s shirt.

Yuugi gave Atem a sympathetic pat. “There, there.”

“Just be patient,” Kaiba told him. “It’s only three more hours.”

“Three whole _hours!”_ Atem wailed dramatically. “Why haven’t you invented teleportation yet?”

“...Because that’s not my field of interest?” Kaiba replied dryly, raising an eyebrow.

Yuugi sighed. “I’m sorry about him. He doesn’t like waiting,” he explained to Kaiba.

“I spent _three thousand years_ waiting around!” Atem announced, finally looking up, if only to throw his head back with all the drama of a Shakespearean actor.

“I know you did,” Yuugi answered calmly.

“Three thousand years in total isolation-”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I spent _so long_ in that damn Puzzle-”

“That you lost your sense of time, I know, I know.”

“And now I have to spend _twelve whole hours_ in this stupid airplane! It’s ridiculous!” Atem insisted, throwing his hands up in outrage.

“Yup,” Yuugi continued to answer automatically.

“At least the Millennium Puzzle didn’t smell weird!”

“Mhmm.”

“Or make my feet cold… Or like, my ears hurt?” he added, frowning slightly in confusion

“Don’t worry. Just think, once we get off this plane, you won’t have to deal with it anymore,” Kaiba assured him.

Atem sighed. “Yeah, I-”

“That is, until we do it all again for the return trip,” Kaiba finished, with a knowing, self-assured grin.

...Atem took a deep breath, buried his face in Yuugi’s shoulder yet again, and let out a long muffled scream.


	2. Chapter 2

“God, I hate this weather,” Kaiba muttered as he stepped out of the limo, arms crossed in irritation.

Yuugi gave him a sympathetic frown. “I mean, to be fair, you  _ are  _ wearing a turtleneck.”

All three boys had changed into more “weather-appropriate” clothes before leaving the airport, having gone from Domino City’s cool spring weather to the hot Nevada desert. Yuugi wore a simple black tank top, a pair of faded old blue jeans, and sandals; Atem, in addition to his usual black platform boots and copious amounts of jewelry, wore a pair of black shorts and a band T-shirt. (Which band, Yuugi wasn’t sure; Jounouchi had introduced Atem to several American metal bands over the past year, but their logos were so stylized that Yuugi had no hope of reading any of them.)

Kaiba, on the other hand, had changed little about his outfit other than donning a short vest in place of his usual long jacket. Yuugi was quite familiar with the concept of fashion over function- he was goth, after all, and god knew black was not the best color for summer- but he did have to question some of Kaiba’s choices.

Kaiba simply scoffed at Yuugi’s comment, saying nothing as he grabbed his luggage and began following the crowd.

“I think this weather is nice,” Atem added cheerfully before following Kaiba.

A fair number of people ambled through the entryway and towards the front door- some bearing luggage, some empty-handed, some in suits, some clearly inebriated. A handful of people gave their group strange looks; They were certainly younger than the rest of the crowd (although there were some families with young kids, but none without supervising adults). It didn’t help, Atem thought, that he and Yuugi were still frequently mistaken for middle schoolers, with their tiny frames and round faces.

“I wonder how much the inside really looks like part of ancient Egypt,” Yuugi commented, glancing around curiously as they slowly made their way towards the door.

Atem nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah… Seems kinda weird that they put the entrance under a giant sphinx. These jackals are cute, though,” Atem admitted, casually reaching out to pat one of the statues flanking the entrance as they passed by.

“It’s not meant to be a true replica of ancient Egyptian architecture,” Kaiba pointed out. “It’s only Egyptian inspired, from what I understand.”

“That makes sense. Still, I- ...Oh god,” Atem gasped quietly as they finally reached the door. 

The inside of the casino, contrary to the sleek exterior of the glass pyramid, was a chaotic mess that overwhelmed the senses on every level. Bright, colorful signs and flashing advertisements seemed to take up every inch of visible space, greatly overpowering the Egyptian statues that stood between them; Restaurants, entertainment venues, and storefronts were crammed together at every turn, open to the lobby, each one with their own conflicting sets of music and background noise. And of course, filling all the empty space was a chattering mass of people. 

“It looks like if Shibuya got hit by a truck,” Yuugi observed, grimacing slightly in distaste and subconsciously pressing himself closer towards Atem. 

“It looks like an arcade from a conceptual dystopian horror movie about capitalism,” Atem continued.

“To be fair, that is essentially what it is,” Kaiba pointed out, glancing around for a moment before identifying the hotel check-in counter.

Yuugi frowned slightly, raising an eyebrow as he followed Kaiba. “I’m… not sure you have any right to talk about capitalism.”

Kaiba scowled. “Please. Kaiba Corporation makes our profit by selling actual good quality and innovative products that consumers genuinely want to buy. Casinos, on the other hand, make their profit by shamelessly manipulating human psychology in order to take advantage of those who are prone to addiction and poor financial habits, and manipulate them in order to squeeze out every last drop of their money,” he spat, seemingly glaring at the very building itself. “They’re spineless, weak, and an insult to games. If it weren’t for the expo, I wouldn’t even be here.”

“That’s fair,” Yuugi conceded, nodding in acknowledgement as he followed Kaiba towards the check-in counter, falling in line behind him, his suitcase in one hand and Atem’s hand in his other.

He glanced idly around at the scenery as they waited. It was certainly… chaotic, though he could appreciate it a bit more now that he could look around more calmly, without the initial shock; There was an odd mixture of Egyptian-inspired decor and modern features, with buildings within buildings, and signs advertising various attractions. Everything seemed colorfully lit- including a towering obelisk in the center, with glowing hieroglyphs.

“Look at that,” Yuugi said, nudging Atem’s side and nodding towards the obelisk.

“Woah, cool,” Atem gasped as he turned to look. “I wish I had a light-up obelisk…”

Yuugi suddenly frowned slightly, squinting as he stared at the obelisk.

“Hey… What does it say?” he questioned after a moment, still frowning in confusion.

“Hmm, I can’t really see all of it from here, but…” Atem trailed off, tilting his head thoughtfully and staring, before also beginning to frown. “I… I don’t think it actually  _ says _ anything,” he realized after a moment.

Yuugi nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

The two of them continued to ponder the obelisk, trying to pick out any semblance of legibility as Kaiba spoke to the receptionist, his English solid yet clearly just as scathingly bitter as his Japanese.

“...’Thirty mouths’?” Atem read confusedly, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Those letters really look kinda… Pasted on,” Yuugi said, sounding almost apologetic, as if he felt bad for the obelisk. “I mean, most of them aren’t even on the same line.”

“This is bullshit… I think some of them might not even be-”

Before Atem could finish, he found himself interrupted by angry yelling. Kaiba slammed his hand down on the counter, and then turned on his heel in a raging huff.

“Oh, I am  _ so _ going to kill whoever organized this damn event,” he growled. 

Yuugi frowned in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Apparently, instead of booking us adjoining rooms, they booked  _ one _ room for all three of us,” Kaiba explained with a bitter, angry scowl. “And now they’re insistent that they can’t change the arrangements.”

“Are you serious?” Atem gasped in a low tone, exchanging wide-eyed glances with Yuugi.

“What? But that has to be a mistake, can’t they just-”

_ “Here,”  _ Kaiba snarled, cutting off Yuugi’s sentence and thrusting two room keys and his suitcase towards the two of them. “Go.  _ I’m _ going to go for a walk.”

With that, he stormed off, shoving his way past the rest of the line, stomping towards whatever direction suited his fancy.

“Kaiba-kun, wait- Aaaaand he’s gone,” Yuugi sighed. “Geez, I can’t believe he seriously expects us to get his luggage for him… What a jerk.”

“Technically, we could just leave it here,” Atem pointed out. “You know, make him learn about consequences.” He shrugged. 

Yuugi looked at Atem. 

Atem looked at Yuugi. 

They both looked at the suitcase. 

...Yuugi sighed, and took Kaiba’s suitcase in his free hand. “I wish he weren’t so…”

“Infuriating? Rude? Entitled? Inconsiderate? Pompous?”

“All of those things,” Yuugi agreed with terse gentleness, nodding slowly as he walked towards the elevator, dragging both suitcases behind him with some difficulty. 

“Me too. Here, let me get that,” Atem offered, taking one of the suitcases from Yuugi.

Once they were in the elevator, Yuugi let go of his suitcase, leaning heavily against the rail as he tried to catch his breath. Atem, too, let go of one of the suitcases, glancing at the room key before pressing the button for the corresponding number. 

“Man… This place is kinda disappointing,” Atem said as he stared out the glass walls of the elevator, watching the chaos below grow farther and farther away. 

Yuugi nodded. “I know what you mean,” he admitted, grateful for the fact that the other people in the elevator didn’t seem to speak Japanese. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting a totally authentic replica of Tanis or anything, but…”

“There’s no respect in any of it,” Atem said with a sigh and a dismissive shrug. “They’ve got a giant obelisk covered in made-up gibberish that doesn’t make any sense, a tacky-looking sphinx, the whole thing looks like a shopping mall from hell… I’m pretty sure I saw an ad for a strip club right next to a funerary statue, which is just weird,” he added, frowning in distaste.

“Getting into the spirit, are you?” the elderly woman next to them interrupted, smiling at Atem and Yuugi.

The two of them exchanged confused glances, trying to process what she said. ... _ ‘Spirit’... ‘are you’...  _

“We’re alive,” Yuugi assured her quickly, smiling and shaking his head. “Not ghosts.”

The old woman laughed. “You look very Egyptian,” she replied, gesturing towards their outfits. “You’ve got the eye makeup, and that big pyramid is quite the interesting touch,” she added, pointing towards the Millennium Puzzle as it hung against Yuugi’s chest. 

“That is real,” Atem told her in his best attempt at English. 

The woman tilted her head questioningly at him. “Oh, it’s real gold?”

Atem shook his head. “No- Ah, yes,” he corrected himself, upon realizing what she’d said. “It’s real… It’s really Egypt. That,” he added, pointing to the scenery below, “Is shit.”

“Atem! You can’t just say that!” Yuugi gasped, reverting to Japanese. 

“I can, and I will.”

“No!”

The old woman stared at them in shock for a moment, before bending down slightly as if speaking to a child. “Now, honey… I’m not sure you know what that word means,” she said slowly, in an awkward, almost condescending voice.

“I know it,” Atem replied flatly as the elevator came to a stop. “It’s fucking shit. Bye.”

With that, he calmly exited the elevator, leaving a scandalized Yuugi to quickly shout “I’m so sorry!” to the old woman before following after him. 

“You can’t just say things like that!” Yuugi insisted as he caught up to Atem.

“Why not? It’s true,” Atem replied, shrugging. 

Yuugi sighed. “Other Me,  _ please,”  _ he said in exasperation, his old nickname for his “other self” slipping out now that they were mostly alone.

“Alright, alright, fine,” Atem conceded with reluctance. “I promise I will no longer insult the Luxor in a language other people can understand.”

“...Close enough,” Yuugi muttered as he followed Atem along the balcony-like hall; He paused for a moment, glancing over the short wall at the casino far below them. 

“Woah, check it out. You can see the whole place from here,” he called out.

Atem joined him curiously, looking down at the many stores, restaurants, and event halls crammed together below, punctuated by palm trees and tiny people milling about. They watched the chaos for a while, listening to the distant echoes of loud music and chattering crowds, watching the advertisements flash, until they finally looked back at each other. 

“...Yikes,” Atem said after a moment, not knowing what else to say. 

“Yeah.”

Shrugging, Yuugi and Atem left the visceral snapshot of consumerism behind, continuing on until they reached their room. Yuugi unlocked the door, and held it open as Atem dragged the two suitcases inside. 

“Finally, some quiet,” Atem sighed as the door shut behind them, blissfully sealing out the noise of the casino, creating a soft, comfortable silence. Yuugi, too, seemed relieved to have some peace, as he immediately walked over to one of the beds and collapsed face-forward onto it, not even bothering to take off his shoes or backpack. 

“I can’t believe they’re seriously making us share a room with Kaiba,” he mumbled, his voice greatly muffled by the thick bedsheets.

“I know,” Atem agreed as he put down his backpack and kicked off his boots, flopping down onto the bed next to Yuugi. 

For a while, they simply stayed there in the quiet, too tired to move or say anything. After a moment, Atem pushed himself off the bed with some reluctance and a long, deep sigh. 

“I guess we should get settled,” he admitted, lazily making his way over to where they’d left the suitcases. Yuugi gave a muffled noise of agreement- somewhere between a grunt and a whine- and slowly stood up again. 

“I know the three of us were invited to the expo together as a group, and I don’t mind that, but… I doubt Kaiba wants to room with us,” he muttered. “I mean, we seem to constantly annoy him just by, I don’t know… Existing, I guess? And you know how he gets when he’s grumpy,” he added, shaking his head in dismay as he took his shoes off.

Atem nodded, taking his backpack over to the other side of the room. “Yeah, honestly, I just hope he doesn’t- Yo, uh, there’s… There is a castle outside,” he observed, blinking in shock as he glanced out the slanted window.

“Wait, what?” Yuugi gasped, hurrying over to join him. 

“Look,” Atem said, putting a hand on Yuugi’s shoulder and pointing outside the window. “There’s… A castle.”

“Oh yeah… I think that’s another casino,” Yuugi realized, squinting slightly against the bright sky as he stared at the cartoony spires. 

“What? Seriously? Aww man, they should’ve had the expo over there,” Atem whined. “That place looks way more fun than this dump.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t you think you’re being a little bit harsh on it?” Yuugi suggested gently. 

Atem gave Yuugi a sarcastic look. 

Yuugi tilted his head in defeat. “Yeah, ok, you’re right.”

Atem sighed as he unzipped his backpack, taking out his Gameboy and charger. 

“It just feels… I don’t know. I feel like I’m being made fun of, somehow,” he admitted with a disappointed frown. “I mean, look! Those aren’t even words,” he added, gesturing to the hieroglyphs that covered the wallpaper. 

“No, some of them are,” Yuugi insisted. “Like, look! This one… This one says ‘now’... Uh, I guess? ...Ok, yeah, no, you’re right, this is like ninety percent illegible,” He admitted, tilting his head and frowning at the set of awkwardly constructed letters. 

Atem stood up and walked over to the wall, pointing to a cartouche and looking at Yuugi. “When mom finally lets us get a cat, we should name it…” He paused, glancing at the wall. “...‘Uuar Twenty-One’,” he read, unable to finish without cracking a grin and fighting back laughter.

Yuugi let out a snicker of amusement. “Oh yeah, totally a name fit for a king,” he replied, and soon he and Atem were both doubled over with laughter, baffled by the absurdity of it all. 

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, leaning against the wall and having a much-needed laugh, until Yuugi came to a sudden realization and abruptly stood up straight again.

“Oh no, we forgot to call home after we got off the plane!” he gasped.

“Ah, you’re right,” Atem realized. “Should we still call..? I mean, it is about… 4 A.M. in Japan right now,” he pointed out, glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, but you know how much mom worries,” Yuugi sighed, a guilty expression on his face. “Better to call now than to deal with her freaking out later.”

Atem nodded as Yuugi took out his phone, dialing in their home number from memory. He sat down in a chair by the window, and Atem soon took over the arm of the chair, both of them silent and expectant as the phone rang.

_ “...Hello..?” _

“Oh! Hey, dad!” Yuugi blurted out, pleasantly surprised by the sleepy voice that had picked up the phone. “Sorry for waking you up, but we’re all checked in at the hotel, so I just wanted to let you and mom know.”

_ “Oh, good!”  _ Yuugi’s dad replied, trying his best to be cheerful and interested despite his sleepiness.  _ “How was the flight?” _

Yuugi shrugged. “Eh, it was long and boring, but other than that it was fine.”

_ “And how’s the hotel?” _

“It’s terrible. I hate it,” Atem answered darkly, causing Yuugi to jump in surprise as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere right next to Yuugi’s ear. 

“Hey, don’t scare me like that! Geez, you’re so creepy,” Yuugi muttered, and pulled away slightly. “Yeah, the hotel is… um… It’s, uh, ...Interesting,” he continued, grimacing slightly in his awkward attempt to sound optimistic. “There was a bit of a problem with our reservation, but, um, it’s fine now!”

_ “What happened? Is everything ok?”  _ Yuugi’s dad asked, his voice taking on a more serious quality in his worry. 

“Uh… Well, long story short, we have to share a room with Kaiba-kun,” Yuugi answered.

_ “What’s the long story, then?” _

Yuugi sighed. “Apparently, the people who arranged the lodgings booked the three of us one double room instead of two single rooms,” he explained. “It’s nothing we can’t live with, but… Kaiba-kun has a tendency to start fights, and I’m a bit worried about everyone sleeping, I mean…” He turned away from Atem slightly, and cupped his hand around the receiver before whispering, “You know how Atem gets with his nightmares and stuff…”

Yuugi’s dad made a quiet hum of worried agreement.  _ “Yeah, I know… Well, good luck,”  _ he told Yuugi sincerely.  _ “Aside from that, how’s everything? Have you two eaten dinner yet?” _

Yuugi shook his head. “No, we haven’t had dinner yet, we’ll probably do that soon. Other than that, we’re fine, I guess.”

_ “Well, I’m glad to hear you two are holding up ok,”  _ Yuugi’s dad replied with a yawn.  _ “I think I’m gonna head to bed now, if that’s alright. Have fun at the expo, don’t let Atem and Kaiba kill each other.” _

Yuugi laughed, though whether it was out of amusement or nervousness, he wasn’t quite sure. “I won’t. Thanks, dad, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, dad!” Atem chimed in, leaning over towards the phone once again. 

“Tell mom and grandpa we said hi, ok?”

_ “I will! Goodnight, boys.” _

Yuugi sighed slightly as he flipped the phone closed, returning it to his pants pocket. “I hope we didn’t worry him too much…”

“Just be glad it was dad who answered the phone and not mom. If it’d been mom, she would have totally freaked out,” Atem pointed out. “But anyway, like you said, we should probably get dinner soon.”

Yuugi nodded. “Yeah, let’s eat! I’m starving,” he announced, immediately perking up at the mention of food. 

He hopped out of the chair and dug his wallet out of his backpack, then watched as Atem stretched out casually and climbed down from the arm of the chair.

“What’s up?” Atem questioned, frowning slightly in concern at the way Yuugi was staring at him. 

“Oh, nothing. You’re very cat-like, you know,” Yuugi remarked with an amused smile.

Atem grinned, and held out his hand to Yuugi. “Thank you. Shall we go?”

Yuugi nodded as he took Atem’s hand, following him to the door.

“Here’s hoping the food’s good, at least,” Atem muttered as they stepped back out into the chaos.

* * *

Atem stood rather noticeably still in the middle of the busy buffet, holding an empty plate and staring at the dishes with profound disappointment.

“None of this food is even remotely Egyptian,” he said flatly. 

“Well, they’ve got some fish,” Yuugi suggested helpfully. “And, uh… Bread?”

Atem sighed as he watched Yuugi cheerfully fill his own plate with heaping servings of American food, without a care in the world. (Oh, how sweet he had it.)

“I really figured they’d have some sort of modern Egyptian food, at least,” Atem muttered. “You know, at least falafel or something… I really wanted falafel…”

“Well, cheer up. I’m sure you’ll find something you like.”

Nonetheless, Atem was still standing there by the time Yuugi returned to their table. As he walked, he nearly bumped into a certain familiar figure.

“Oh… Sorry, Kaiba-kun,” he apologized as he sat down. 

Kaiba nodded in acknowledgement, and sat down… At the table next to theirs. Yuugi held back a sigh, quietly cursing whatever fate had led them to get seated next to each other. So much for at least having a quiet dinner with his “brother”, it seemed; Why was it that no matter where they went, Kaiba was never far behind?

He frowned slightly, but said nothing as he began eating, figuring it was best not to bother Kaiba. Soon after, Atem returned.

“This hotel is the biggest disappointment I’ve ever seen,” Atem complained as he sat down across from Yuugi. 

“At least the food’s decent,” Kaiba said in a calm, neutral tone, with an equally unreadable expression as he kept his eyes on his food; It was the first thing he’d said to either of them since his outburst in the lobby earlier. Yugi and Atem exchanged uncertain voices, not quite sure how they should react, too afraid to misstep.

It was Atem, however, who made the first move.

“...I wanted falafel,” he muttered darkly, glaring at his plate so hard it seemed it might combust. (Yuugi raised an eyebrow as he noticed that Atem’s dinner appeared to consist of three garlic knots, half a bagel, and four chicken nuggets.)

“Well  _ I _ think the food is fine,” Yuugi said rather pointedly.

“That’s because all you eat is burgers and sushi,” Atem insisted, and gestured to Yugi’s plate. “Case in point.”

Kaiba gave an amused snort. “I don’t know what you expected. It’s a tourist trap, Atem. All the food here is designed to have the most generic broad appeal possible to Americans,” he pointed out. “If you want ethnic food, you have to look for little hole-in-the-wall places in cities. That’s how it works.”

Atem slammed his hands on the table.  _ “Falafel!” _ he demanded oh-so-eloquently.

“I regret letting Marik take us out for lunch. I think you’ve developed an addiction,” Yuugi muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Anyway, um… Are you, uh… Feeling better, Kaiba-kun?” he asked hesitantly.

Kaiba nodded. “American duelists are truly pathetic,” he said, as if this explained everything.

Yuugi frowned slightly in concern. “Are you sure that’s really a problem with Americans, or is it just that you’re on a completely different skill level from most duelists?”

“I suppose you have a point,” Kaiba admitted with a shrug. “You two are the only ones who can compete anywhere near my level.”

“I dunno about that,” Atem interrupted. “Mai and Jounouchi are pretty damn close. One of ‘em’s gonna beat you sooner or later.”

Kaiba gave a snort of disbelief. “Please. The day Morrigan and Okuyasu there beat me is the day I dye my hair green.”

“Huh?” Yuugi frowned slightly, leaning a bit closer to Kaiba to hear over the noise of the restaurant.

“I said, ‘The day Morrigan and Okuyasu beat me is the day I dye my hair green’.”

“Got it!” Atem declared suddenly, rapidly pressing buttons on his phone. “Thanks, Aibou.”

Yuugi gave Atem a smile and a thumbs-up, just as Kaiba’s eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion.

“What did you just do?” Kaiba growled.

“Nothing,” Atem replied innocently.

Atem jumped out of his chair at the same moment that Kaiba did, staying one step ahead of him as he ran around to the other side of the table, holding his phone away from Kaiba’s reach.

“Give me your damn phone!” Kaiba ordered, making a grab for it just as Atem ducked out of his reach.

“Nope!” Atem responded with a grin.

“Let me see it!”

“No!”

As Kaiba made another dive for Atem’s phone, Atem slipped gracefully underneath the table, his tiny frame curling up neatly underneath it. He stuck out one arm and dragged his chair in for good measure. 

“Guys, cut it out,” Yuugi pleaded. “Come on, we’re in a restaurant.”

Kaiba ignored Yuugi as he crouched down so violently he nearly pulled the table over.

“Delete the video,  _ now,”  _ he demanded.

“Too late. I already sent it to Mokuba,” Atem replied with no small amount of smugness, sticking his tongue out at Kaiba. “Now we’re gonna hold you to it, ha.”

Kaiba growled angrily and shot his arm out towards Atem, waving his hand aimlessly around under the chair in an attempt to accomplish… something, as Atem leaned back in retreat, practically sitting on Yuugi’s feet in the process. Kaiba had just managed to grab a fistful of Atem’s hair when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Wha-  _ Ow,”  _ Kaiba hissed in pain as hit his head on the table immediately upon starting to stand up. He rubbed his sore head and looked up to find not Yuugi, but- A waiter, staring at him with an unamused expression.

“Sir, this is a restaurant,” the waiter told him tersely. “You’re disturbing the other diners. If you can’t behave appropriately, you will be asked to leave.”

Kaiba’s face went red. Before he could say anything, Yuugi put out his hand to gently stop him.

“I’m so sorry for them,” Yuugi told the waiter, carefully pronouncing his English and trying to smile as sweetly and reassuringly as possible. “Um, sorry for this, but- can- um- Couldn’t we get our food to... go out, uh, please?” he tried, hoping he’d used the right words, pantomiming putting a box on his plate for emphasis.

The waiter’s eyes softened slightly- Though whether it was out of sympathy for Yuugi, or relief at the thought of them leaving, Yuugi wasn’t sure. Either way, he nodded, and picked up their plates.

As the waiter left, Atem slowly crawled out from under the table, head hung in shame. After that, no one really said anything for a while, too embarrassed to know what to say.

“...I still don’t understand how you can manage to cram yourself in such tiny spaces like that,” Kaiba muttered after a moment.

“It’s simple, I’m a small person,” Atem explained, shrugging.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow at him. “Circus freak, more like.”

“I prefer either ‘scientific anomaly’ or ‘abomination against nature’, but thank you,” Atem replied.

The waiter soon returned with their food, packaged neatly in styrofoam containers. Yuugi quietly paid their bill, and left what he hoped was a generous tip- he remembered the concept of tipping, but not how it actually worked, so he just left $15 and hoped that was enough- while Kaiba did the same, and then they quickly took their food and left.

Yuugi sighed as they got in the elevator. “Seriously, you two. I can’t believe you almost got us kicked out of a restaurant!” he scolded them, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kaiba huffed. “He started it.”

“It was for a good cause,” Atem insisted. “But you’re right, our behavior was extremely immature and inappropriate. I’m sorry.”

Yuugi raised an eyebrow at Kaiba, but didn’t press the matter any further. “In any case, let’s just get to the room. I’m ready for bed,” he decided, yawning slightly as he spoke.

“Agreed,” Atem said. “Who’s bathing first?”

“I’ll go last. I tend to stay up late anyway,” Kaiba volunteered.

Yuugi and Atem exchanged glances, an unspoken question to each other written on both their faces.

“...Rock-paper-scissors for it?” Yuugi suggested.

Atem nodded, and with that, the two of them raised their fists in synchronized rhythm as they walked down the hall.

“I win,” Yuugi proclaimed proudly, covering Atem’s fist with his open hand while Kaiba unlocked the door. Atem pouted slightly as they followed Kaiba inside.

Once inside, the three of them gathered around the table by the window to finish their dinner. The sun had set by now, though few stars were visible, too drowned out by the lights from the city.

“I miss the way the sky used to look,” Atem commented idly as he unwrapped his food, sighing slightly. “There’s hardly any stars anymore.”

“You can still see lots of stars some places,” Yuugi pointed out. 

“Yeah, but only out in the middle of assfuck nowhere, yknow? I’m a city person,” Atem insisted. “I used to love to go out on the balcony at night and look at the stars, and Tanis was plenty busy. Nowadays you go outside at night in a city like that, and all you see is streetlights.”

Kaiba gave an amused snort. “Sorry to hear that, grandpa,” he said sarcastically. 

Atem rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up. You remember it too, don’t you?”

Kaiba opened his mouth to respond- And then paused, seeing the slightest hint of a warning in Yuugi’s eyes.

“...Yes, I do, and that’s good enough for me,” he replied carefully after a moment. “Anyway, more importantly- What the hell kind of dinner is that?” he wondered, gesturing towards Atem’s plate full of carbohydrates. 

Atem hesitated for a moment before answering. 

“...Eating is… Actually really hard for me,” Atem admitted quietly, looking down in shame. “All of these foods are at least… tolerable.”

“Eating something is better than eating nothing,” Yuugi added with a reassuring smile. 

Kaiba frowned slightly, raising an eyebrow. “Why is eating hard?”

Atem shrugged. “I dunno. A lot of normal life things are complicated for me, probably because I went so long without really having a body,” he guessed. 

“But you’ve had a body for two years now,” Kaiba pointed out. 

“Two years isn’t much compared to three thousand.”

There was silence after that, until Kaiba hesitantly spoke a few minutes later. 

“Do you… Remember all that time?” he wondered. 

“More or less,” Atem sighed. “I went insane after a while, so it’s kind of a blur.” Then, without warning, he reached out and grabbed one of Kaiba’s french fries, stuffing the entire thing into his mouth before Kaiba had a chance to react. 

“Hey!”

“That’s your fee for making me talk about my traumatic backstory,” Atem informed Kaiba through a mouthful of potato. 

Kaiba huffed. “Whatever happened to ‘eating is-’  _ Yuugi!”  _ Kaiba exclaimed in shock and irritation as another fry disappeared off his plate. 

Yuugi giggled as he bit into the fry. “I’m gonna go start the bath.”

“Eating may be hard, but antagonizing you is easy,” Atem laughed, watching Yuugi run off. 

“You two really try my patience, you know that?” Kaiba mumbled, glaring at Atem.

“You have patience?”

Kaiba reached across the table and flicked Atem square between the eyes with his index finger.

“Ouch! Alright, I deserved that,” Atem admitted, rubbing his forehead.

“Yes, you did,” Kaiba informed him as he stood up, carrying his empty box of food over to the trash. He washed his hands, picked up the TV remote from the desk, and climbed onto the bed closest to the window, lying back against the pillows and crossing one leg over the other.

Atem watched the room idly as he slowly finished his dinner, occasionally glancing out the window at the city lights. Yuugi briefly came back into the room to grab a set of pajamas; Meanwhile, Kaiba flipped through channels, settling on some sort of documentary about… Engineering or something, Atem wasn’t really sure. 

(Atem’s English vocabulary was, admittedly, not very large; He’d somewhat neglected his school work throughout high school, being mostly preoccupied with things such as “Oh right, living bodies require food in order to function” and “Wow, my memories are not as pleasant as I thought they would be” and “What do you  _ mean t _ hat’s a trauma symptom and not just something everyone does?”, so whatever absolutely useless memorization techniques his English teacher had enforced had been even more ineffective on Atem than they were on anyone else. As a result, what little English he knew mostly consisted of things he had absorbed from games, and slang Jounouchi had taught him for fun.)

By the time Atem finished eating, the documentary had already ended. Atem climbed into the bed closest to the bathroom just as the next program started, this one showing shots of the Giza pyramids. This got Atem’s attention, and both he and Kaiba watched with interest for a few minutes.

“Oh, you have _ got _ to be kidding me,” Kaiba said after a moment, as images of space swirled across the screen.

“What? What are they saying?” Atem asked, frowning slightly as he tried to decipher the unfamiliar words. “Ex… extra… Extra-what? Huh?”

“‘Extraterrestrials’,” Kaiba answered. “It means ‘aliens’. Apparently this is one of those bullshit conspiracy theory documentaries about aliens building the pyramids,” he explained, rolling his eyes in disgust.

Atem couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. “I’m sorry,  _ what?!” _

“You’d be surprised at how many people believe it,” Kaiba said in dismay. “Conspiracy theories are ridiculous. God, you should hear some of the ones about KaibaCorp…”

“Ooh, tell me.”

Kaiba took a breath, closing his eyes for a moment as he mentally went through the list of nonsensical rumors he’d heard about his company. “Let’s see… Well, probably the most common one I’ve heard is that Gozaburo Kaiba never actually died- I merely faked his suicide in order to take over the company, and his body is supposedly cryogenically frozen in a secret vault underneath Alcatraz.”

“Wait, wait wait wait,” Atem interrupted, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “If you wanted him gone to take over his company so badly, I mean, wouldn’t it be more convenient at that point to just straight up murder him? What makes people think you would bother with the amount of time, planning, and resources it would take to cryogenically freeze someone and then fake their death?”

Kaiba shrugged. “Beats me. Like I said, none of these conspiracy theories make any sense, or have any basis in reality for that matter,” he pointed out. “Anyway, what else… Oh, there’s the one that I don’t have thumbs, pretty sure Mokuba started that one-”

“Wait, what?”

“And then, the most ridiculous one of all…” Kaiba paused, sighing deeply before beginning the tale. “Some people claim that Gozaburo had a biological son, whose name is either Seto or Noah depending on who you ask, who died in an accident as a child. This so-called original Kaiba heir was then replaced by either a clone or a lookalike, aka me- nevermind the fact that it’s public knowledge that I’m adopted- And the quote-unquote ‘evidence’ people have for this is a photo of me from middle school, which someone edited to make my hair green.”

Atem stared silently at Kaiba for a brief second, before breaking out into laughter so hard he fell over backwards, landing on the pillow with a soft fwump. Kaiba watched as Atem continued to laugh himself into tears, rolling around on the bed and clutching his sides giggling until he was completely out of breath.

“...Yeah,” Kaiba said simply once Atem had mostly settled down.

Atem slowly sat up, taking several deep breaths and wiping his eyes. “I just don’t get it, though,” he said after a moment. “Why would anyone think aliens built the pyramids? I mean, there’s extensive records of their construction. Everyone knows they’re from the Fourth Dynasty.”

Kaiba shrugged. “The short answer is, because people are idiots. The long answer… Well, I’ve got my own theory as to why,” he said with a glance at the TV.

“Oh yeah? Let’s hear it, then,” Atem prompted.

“It’s simple: Modern egos.”

Atem raised an eyebrow at Kaiba. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s this concept that modern western civilization is the smartest humanity has ever been, and that all of humanity’s greatest achievements are the work of white Christian men,” Kaiba explained flatly. “The thought that a Middle Eastern society from thousands of years ago could build something so impressive, long-lasting, and mathematically precise threatens modern white people’s position at the top of the intelligence food chain, so to speak, so they rationalize it by saying that humans couldn’t possibly have built the pyramids- Clearly, it was intervention from aliens. That way, the Egyptians still look dumb and primitive, and modern western morons can pat themselves on the back for having ‘solved’ a supposed ‘mystery’.” Kaiba kicked against the mattress slightly for emphasis as he finished, glancing up at the images of UFOs flashing across the TV.

Atem went quiet for a moment, eyes wide in surprise as he considered this.

“Huh… I was going to say that sounds a little out there, but that… Actually makes a lot of sense,” he admitted, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this.”

Kaiba said nothing, but frowned slightly at the implication.

The two were silent for a little while, watching the so-called “documentary” with a mixture of amusement, disbelief, and disdain- though gradually the latter more than the former.

“Oh, this is just insulting,” Kaiba blurted out after a few minutes. “These idiots clearly know absolutely nothing about Egypt. I cannot believe people got paid to make this crap.”

“You want insulting and misinformed? Look around you,” Atem said, gesturing to the room at large.

Kaiba did so, and frowned as he looked at the wallpaper more closely for the first time.

“The hell is this bullshit? These aren’t even words,” he realized in disbelief.

“Hey, that’s not a very nice way to talk about Pharaoh Uuar Twenty-One,” Atem joked half-heartedly, with a slight snort of amusement.

Kaiba, however, did not seem to find the whole thing quite so funny. “Hell, some of these aren’t even _ letters,” _ he continued, scowling in disgust as he stood up and stared at the wall. “Look at this! It’s ridiculous. This is a blatant mockery of a complex and elegant script,” he decided in frustration.

“It sure is!” Atem agreed. “That’s what we are now, I guess. A watered-down shitty tourist attraction in Vegas.” He sighed and shook his head, leaning back against the pillows bitterly.

“God, they’re not even _ trying _ to arrange things neatly and artistically.  _ Where _ the hell are the phonetic compliments? Nowhere, that’s where,” Kaiba spat.

“Well, you know…” Atem suddenly stood up from the bed as an idea occurred to him. “We could… Give it a little touch-up,” he suggested carefully, a subtle mischievous twinkle in his eye as he reached into his pocket and held up a marker.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow in interest at this suggestion, smirking slightly. “Now there’s something I can agree with.”

Atem and Kaiba exchanged smug grins as Kaiba uncapped a marker of his own, looking the wallpaper over for a spot to write.

“Ok, Atem, your- Uh, what are you guys doing?” Yuugi asked, blinking in confusion from the entryway, a towel hanging around his shoulders. Atem and Kaiba both froze, markers hovering just in front of the wall.

“Nothing,” Atem lied.

“Then why are you holding a sharpie up against the wall?”

Atem glanced around the room aimlessly, as if hoping the furniture would somehow give him an alibi, though his expression was quite clear: He was, as the saying went, busted, and he knew it.

“We’re simply making some much-needed improvements to the decor,” Kaiba explained slowly. “Care to join us?”

“I- What? No, that’s vandalism,” Yuugi replied, shaking his head. “You can’t just write on the walls!”

“Why not?”

Yuugi blinked in surprise at Kaiba’s question. “Why? Uh, because we’ll get in trouble?” he answered, raising an eyebrow.

Kaiba shrugged. “So, we don’t get our security deposit back. Big deal. I’m sure worse things have happened in this room,” he insisted.

“If anything, we’re doing them a favor,” Atem added.

Kaiba nodded in agreement. “Atem’s right. I mean, it’s absurd that someone actually got paid to design this nonsense.”

Yuugi sighed as he flopped down on the bed. “Guys, please behave like adults for just five minutes, please,” he muttered tiredly.

“If a client hires you to design a product built around a specific theme, and you can’t even do the bare minimum amount of research required to portray that theme accurately, then you have failed as a designer and should be fired,” Kaiba continued, blatantly ignoring Yuugi as he began writing on the wall.

“Yeah!” Atem added with a firm nod, though it was clear he hadn’t been listening closely and was mostly just agreeing for the sake of his own argument.

“Please stop vandalizing the hotel room.”

“No.”

Yuugi sighed once again, though he made no attempt to stop them, clearly too tired to do so. “You know, you really ought to go take your bath before the water gets cold,” he pointed out, now resorting to trying to deflect the conversation.

Atem gasped. “Oh, shit, you’re right,” he exclaimed in sudden realization, and dropped the marker immediately, running over to his suitcase to grab some clothes.

Yuugi smiled to himself quietly as the bathroom door clicked shut, satisfied with his small victory.

* * *

“God, it’s freezing in here.”

Yuugi cracked an eye open slowly at the sudden interruption of the silence, glancing at Atem from where he lay half-asleep on top of the bed; The walls of the room had long since been covered nearly floor to ceiling in graffiti, scrawled in marker-borne renditions of hieroglyphs and hieratic, with text ranging from “Atem was here, March 14th, 1999” to “If you can read this- thank god” and even a loose translation of the Dragon Ball Z theme song.

“What are you doing?” Kaiba mumbled as Atem stomped past his chair.

“Fixing the damn temperature in this place,” Atem replied.

Kaiba smacked Atem’s hand away from the control panel for the A/C. “Don’t touch that! If you turn the AC down, it’s going to get too hot in here. Leave it,” he insisted.

“No way. It’s too cold.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” Atem repeated. “Now I see why everyone thinks you cryogenically froze your stepdad… I’m pretty sure you’re trying to cryofreeze us,” he muttered.

Yuugi raised an eyebrow as he sat up. “Wait, what..? Kaiba did what?”

Kaiba rolled his eyes at Atem’s comment. “Or  _ maybe _ you wouldn’t be so cold if you’d put on some damn clothes,” he pointed out, gesturing to Atem’s body, covered only by a pair of boxers.

“But I don’t  _ want  _ to put on clothes,” Atem insisted, putting his hands on his hips.

“Well I don’t want to spend all night drenched in sweat, so too bad. Besides, you can’t just walk around naked.”

“I’m not ‘walking around naked’,” Atem argued. “I’m wearing underwear, and I’m not leaving this room. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that you’re wearing almost nothing, and complaining that you’re cold,” Kaiba retorted. “Put on some pajamas, shut up, and go to bed.”

Atem crossed his arms and turned away haughtily. “I will not.”

“Then stop complaining.”

Atem once again reached for the AC controls, only to be stopped by Kaiba, who grabbed his wrist.

“Stop trying to change the temperature! Just put on some fucking clothes!”

“No!”

“Guys, could you be more quiet, please?” Yuugi sighed. “And Atem, Kaiba-kun is right. You wouldn’t be so cold if you would put on pajamas like a normal person.”

Atem huffed. “This is an ancient Egypt-themed hotel, is it not? Why should I, an ancient Egyptian, be forced to conform to stupid modern standards about nudity?” he argued. “I am _ not  _ going to put on clothes, and you can’t make me.”

“You’re acting like a child,” Kaiba growled.

“Look, just because  _ I  _ wasn’t born with a stick up my ass-”

“You weren’t ‘born’ at all.”

Atem gasped. “Hey! Take that back!”

Kaiba smirked at Atem. “Or else what?”

“Or else…” Atem glanced around the room as he tried to think of a good threat. “Or else I’ll throw away all the sunscreen, you pasty ass bitch.”

“Why, you-”

“Umm…” Yuugi raised his hand tentatively. “I’m also a ‘pasty ass bitch’, and I would like to not get sunburned,” he interrupted. “Also, you’re not exactly immune to skin cancer, you know.”

“Besides, I could just go buy more,” Kaiba pointed out matter-of-factly.

“In any case, please just put on some clothes and go to sleep,” Yuugi pleaded. “It’s late, and I’m tired of listening to you two argue.”

Atem glanced from Yuugi, to Kaiba, to the AC, back to Yuugi- Yuugi, who was looking at him with a droopy, pleading, innocently sleepy expression.

...Atem sighed, cursing his instinctual protectiveness over Yuugi.

“Fine, but only for your sake,” he relented after a moment. He reluctantly walked over to his suitcase, threw on a random T-shirt, and climbed into bed, pausing to stick his tongue out at Kaiba one last time before curling up against Yuugi’s side.

Yuugi smiled, and put an arm around Atem. “Goodnight, Other Me, goodnight, Kaiba-kun,” he muttered politely before closing his eyes.

“Goodnight, Aibou. Goodnight, assface.”

“Goodnight, Yuugi. Goodnight, circus freak gremlin child.”

Atem nodded in satisfaction at this exchange, and soon fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaiba sat quietly in one of the chairs by the window, a lukewarm cup of coffee in his hand as he glanced idly out at the busy scenery of the Las Vegas strip. Realistically, he knew he should have been sleeping (it was, after all, going on 7 in the morning Japan time), but the events of the day had left him with… Too much to think about.

He found his gaze wandering to the writing on the wall- And primarily to the cartouche bearing Atem’s name, scrawled so casually in permanent marker. There was a part of his mind that screamed that the name being there was dangerous, that he needed to scrub it away until there was no possible trace of what it had once been.

He sighed, and took another sip of his coffee, shivering slightly.

Much as he didn’t like to admit it, Kaiba clearly remembered his life as Seto, priest-turned-king from millennia ago. He remembered almost everything, as clearly as if it had been three years ago and not three thousand. Normally, however, those memories were distant and unobtrusive; Like childhood memories, they were ever-present yet neatly tucked away, too irrelevant now to ever think about, really.

Except… for when Atem was there.

It was as if he’d stepped out of a time machine. Sure, there were others who resembled people Seto had once known- Ishizu, Rishid, Bakura, hell, even Yuugi and his grandfather- but none of them were quite identical, all sporting different haircuts or skin tones or eye shapes. Atem, however, looked the same as he always had, despite the occasional change of outfit or makeup; Beneath all the spiked bracelets and leather pants was the same boy he’d once known, the same boy he’d played with and fought with and and lived with as a child, the same boy who’d been so stressed that he had a tendency to fall asleep on the throne. The same boy who had never been given the opportunity to become an adult. 

That little dead boy from so long ago stood right in the middle of modern day as if it were natural, taking the Duel Monsters world by storm without a care in the world, grinning and rolling his eyes and laughing the exact same way he always had, chattering away in fluent Japanese about tabletop RPGs or last night’s episode of Cowboy Bebop or the latest obscure new heavy metal bands. And it was killing Kaiba.

He’d known, of course, that things were going to be different after the events of the Ceremonial Duel; After all, it wasn’t every day that you regained memories of your past life, or that a dead person who was _ supposed _ to be moving on to the afterlife suddenly popped right back out, with a flesh-and-blood body where none had been before. (Kaiba refused to admit how much of a relief this had been to him.) But he’d sworn to take it in stride, and let the past stay buried. What was done was done, and there was no point in scratching at old wounds. 

Seto Kaiba was the sort of person who never looked back, always looking to the future, and he intended to keep it that way. The day he’d first seen Atem in modern day, he’d swallowed the memories bubbling at the back of his mind and sworn to himself that he wouldn’t let things change more than they already had. He would treat Atem the same as he’d treated the “other Yuugi”, as if he’d merely changed his name; Pharaoh Atem was long dead, and the boy who went by the name of Atem Mutou was nothing more than an exceptionally talented duelist, Kaiba’s rival in the thoroughly modern sport of Duel Monsters.

(It was easier that way… Right?)

Today, however, had been different. Though it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to being around the Mutous, it frightened Kaiba just how easily he was able to accept sharing a room with them (discounting the initial shock), how casual things had felt; Everything from the way he and Atem bickered over the room temperature to the way they’d gleefully vandalized the walls felt far too familiar, too… comfortable. They were supposed to just ignore each other most of the time, weren’t they? They were rivals, fellow duelists, nothing more. They weren’t friends, and they most certainly weren’t family.

Right?

Kaiba sighed, and stood up to throw away his coffee cup. As he did so, he glanced at the bed currently occupied by Yugi and Atem.

One might think it was endearing, cute even, the way they slept: snuggled up against each other, arms and legs tightly entangled like a pair of koalas… And yet Kaiba somehow froze when his gaze fell upon Atem. He barely noticed Yuugi, or the bed, or the room, or anything around them- All he saw was Atem, curled up on his side, motionless, eyes shut, a pained expression on his face, and-

_ Atem screamed like Seto had never heard anyone scream before, drowning out even Zorc’s enraged, demonic howling as a light drew both of their souls towards the Millennium Pendant in his hands. Seto trembled where he stood, feeling almost as if this weren’t really happening, it couldn’t be- he couldn’t- _

_ The arm he’d had around Atem to support him slipped, and Atem fell onto his knees, still screaming- how much breath could his small lungs hold, Seto wondered?- and Seto desperately wished there were something, anything he could do to ease his pain, or better yet, to stop this madness altogether; But there was no painless way to mutilate one’s own soul, and if Atem didn’t go through with his plan, so many more innocents would be killed. Seto knew this. He’d understood when Atem had explained his plan to him, and he’d known exactly what was at stake when he agreed to help Atem back to the battlefield, to throw away the key, and to carry on in his stead. _

_ He understood, and yet he couldn’t help but find himself desperately wishing he’d tried harder to talk him out of it. _

_ Atem’s scream finally ended in a quiet, strangled gasp as the last of Zorc disappeared, and Atem’s body went limp. The Millennium Pendant slipped from his hands and shattered onto the ground mere seconds before his body fell over sideways, curled up on the ground, his face frozen in a pained grimace. _

_ Lifeless. Empty. _

_ Dead. _

_ With trembling arms, Seto pulled close to his chest the still-warm body of his friend, his cousin, his brother in all but name, and desperately wished it had been him instead. _

* * *

“Kaiba.  _ Kaiba.” _

Kaiba gasped for breath, and wondered when exactly he’d stopped breathing in the first place. Somehow, Atem was now sitting up in bed, propped up on one wrist with Yuugi’s arms still wrapped loosely around his waist, staring at Kaiba with wide-eyed concerned.

“Are you ok?” he asked seriously, and for once in his life, Kaiba didn’t know how to respond. The part of his mind that so diligently played the role of the icy CEO, Seto Kaiba, told him to say he was fine, to ignore him, to make some sort of snarky rude comment, but...

“...I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered, and his throat felt dryer than the desert.

Atem frowned in confusion, keeping his voice as low as possible for Yuugi’s sake. “Do what?”

“This,” Kaiba spat in response, gesturing between himself and Atem. “This whole… stupid… Pretending like I don’t care thing… I’m sick of it! I’m done!”

Atem nearly flinched in surprise as Kaiba practically threw his empty coffee cup into the garbage, as if he could throw away his problems.

“What is even the fucking _ point?!”  _ Kaiba continued, clearly making no effort to keep his voice down. “How am I supposed to just… just act like it doesn’t matter? Like nothing ever happened? I watched you  _ die! _ I…” he paused, taking a breath as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “I watched you die and I carried your fucking corpse home and I wasn’t even allowed to say your name at your goddamn funeral!”

By now, both Atem and Yuugi were staring at Kaiba with wide-eyed expressions of shock, worry, and sadness. Atem shot a questioning glance at Yuugi, who just barely nodded in response.

“I… think we need to talk,” Atem said slowly, quietly, grabbing the Millennium Puzzle off the nightstand. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

* * *

Kaiba felt almost as if he were on autopilot as he followed Atem downstairs and through the casino, far less crowded now that it was the dead of night. Where Atem was leading them, he wasn’t quite sure; Actually, he wasn’t sure Atem himself knew either, but Atem’s mysterious delinquent instincts had never failed him before, and they certainly didn’t seem to this time.

Kaiba didn’t bother warning Atem that the sign on the door said the pool was closed after sundown- If he knew, he probably didn’t care anyway. With that in mind, Kaiba followed Atem out into the pool area; Deserted, now, with only a few lights to keep the night at bay. 

Atem sat down at the edge of the pool, dangling his bare feet in the water. Kaiba, for lack of knowing what else to do, sat next to him. 

“...You know… I feel like I should know what to say here, but… I don’t,” Atem admitted hesitantly. 

“Mm.”

For a while, they simply sat in silence, watching their own reflections shimmer on the surface of the water. It was… Strange, almost haunting in way, seeing just how much had changed and how much hadn’t. There were echoes of days gone by in the water, memories of a reflecting pool in the palace, yet this was not that pool, and their reflections were neither identical nor totally different; Kaiba bore the same features as the Seto of long ago, though his skin was much paler, his hair just a touch lighter, his modern pajamas strange compared to the robes of a priest. Atem, meanwhile, looked much the same, albeit far more tired, bare of any makeup or jewelry- No crown, no eyeliner, no cape, just an inside-out T-shirt and the bags under his eyes. 

“Was it hard for you?” Atem asked quietly after a few minutes. 

“What?”

“After I died, I mean. Was it hard?” he repeated. 

“Yes,” Kaiba answered- short, quiet, and honest. 

“Oh,” Atem said softly. “So… That’s why you’re mad at me, then,” he muttered, and Kaiba couldn’t help but notice the way his voice shook slightly. 

Kaiba blinked in surprise. “What? No. I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong,” he insisted. 

“Really? Because you could have fooled me,” Atem shot back. “Every time I bring up anything about Egypt, you always get so angry. Sure, it’s fine for you to talk about how much smarter than everyone else we were, but I make one stupid bad joke when I’m stressed and you just-”

Atem paused, and took a deep breath, fiddling with the Millennium Puzzle’s chain. 

“...No, I shouldn’t be going off on you like this,” he decided after a moment. “I’m sorry I yelled. Please, just… Talk to me.”

Kaiba shook his head. “I’m the one who ought to be apologizing,” he admitted quietly, staring at his own tired, dull reflection and biting his lip. “I… I’ve treated you horribly these past two years.”

“Yes, you have,” Atem agreed with a small nod.

“I’m sorry.”

Atem sighed. “I’d say it’s fine, but… It isn’t, really,” he mumbled. “What I just don’t understand is… Why? What did I do to make you hate me so much?”

“I don’t hate you, and you didn’t  _ do _ anything,” Kaiba insisted. “It’s just…” he sighed. “Every time I see you, it brings back… Memories. Memories I don’t like to think about.”

Atem was quiet for a moment before responding.

“...You know, when I first started officially living with Yuugi’s family… It took me a long time to get used to being around them,” he recalled. “Yuugi’s parents look just like my parents, but they don’t… they don’t remember. I was a stranger to them. Everywhere I looked, I saw my dead family, and none of them recognized me, and it was so upsetting that at first I just spent all my time alone in my room,” he admitted, frowning as he watched the water ripple.

Kaiba glanced up at Atem, waiting for him to continue.

“I don’t know, I guess what I’m trying to get at here is… I mean, you keep telling me that the past is gone, but…” Atem gave a slight nervous, bitter laugh. “Honestly? I’m still trying to get used to the idea that I can have a future, or even a present for that matter. I thought you would understand, because we were friends, but… You just keep pushing me away,” he finished quietly. “It hurts. You’re the only family I have left, and you won’t even acknowledge that.”

Kaiba sighed. “I guess I’m just running from my problems after all,” he muttered. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am today, to overcome my shitty past and build a better life for myself and Mokuba… Now that I’ve finally made it, I can’t stand the thought of anything interfering with that, least of all my past life. So I figured if I ignored it, it wouldn’t be a problem,” he realized. “But I guess I can’t really do that, after all. Now all I’ve managed to do is hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“Are you going to start being nice to me, then?” Atem wondered.

Kaiba hesitated for a moment, before giving a shaky nod.

“I… don’t know if things will ever be the same as they used to be- You know I don’t really do all that cutesy friendship crap- But I’m not going to keep up this stupid apathy act anymore,” he decided.

“And Yuugi, too? Are you going to be nice to him?”

“Yes.”

“How do I know you won’t change your mind in the morning?”

Kaiba paused, surprised by this question- Although, he realized guiltily, it wasn’t an unreasonable one.

“Because…” he sighed. “Because I’m sick of lying to myself. I can’t just keep pretending that you never meant anything to me, because you did, and you still do. I hate doing this,” he confessed. “It’s been bothering me for a hell of a lot longer than just today, I just didn’t want to admit it.”

Atem nodded. “So then… Are we… Are we cousins again?” he asked quietly, hesitantly, almost as if afraid to ask.

Kaiba took a deep breath.

“...Yeah. Cousins.”

Before Kaiba had a chance to react, Atem threw his arms around him, pulling Kaiba close in a hug so tight it was almost scary. Kaiba tensed up immediately.

“I-”

...He paused, not really sure what he was even going to say… And then, after a moment, he relaxed. Hesitantly, he returned the embrace, holding Atem close and gently caressing his head, just like he did with Mokuba whenever he had a nightmare.

“We should probably go back to bed,” he whispered after a few minutes.

Atem said nothing, only sighed softly, his head resting heavy on Kaiba’s shoulder. It was then that Kaiba realized that Atem had, in fact, already fallen asleep.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Kaiba smiled gently to himself as he carried Atem inside.

_Epilogue_

“Finally, some decent weather,” Kaiba declared with a huff as he stepped off the plane.

“You’re insane,” Atem insisted, rubbing at the goosebumps on his arms. “I cannot _ believe _ I’m related to you.”

Yuugi smiled as he followed his two companions off the boarding ramp and into the airport, more than pleased to see them getting along- Even if “getting along” was a relative term. The change in demeanor between the two of them after that first night had been immediate, and they’d hardly stopped talking since; They no longer tiptoed around each other, spitting passive-aggressive comments and glaring, but rather bickered casually, like it was their way of playing together. And when they weren’t arguing, they were always in firm agreement.

“Come on, don’t you remember how nice it was in Egypt?” Atem continued as they walked.

Kaiba gave a snort of disbelief. “No? What I remember was an endless oven during the day, cold as fuck at night, all around disgusting… I would prefer to never again step foot on that entire continent, thanks.”

“Again, can’t believe I’m related to you.”

Glancing around the airport, Yuugi spotted a familiar mess of hair, and waved enthusiastically. “Hi, Mokuba-kun!” he called out as they walked towards each other.

“Hey, guys!” Mokuba greeted them cheerfully, and immediately went to hug his brother. “How was the expo?”

“It was cool. I bought a casino,” Kaiba replied casually.

“Cool, did you bring me candy?”

“Oh hell yeah. I bought so much candy we’ll be throwing up for weeks,” Kaiba answered, nodding proudly.

Mokuba laughed. “Well you’re certainly in a good mood! I guess you had fun, huh?” he commented.

“More or less… By the way, Mokuba, there’s something I need to talk to you about when we get home,” Kaiba said, lowering his voice slightly.

Mokuba’s face fell, a look of concern taking over. “Why, what happened? Is everything ok?”

Kaiba nodded. “Yeah, everything’s fine,” he assured Mokuba. “It’s nothing bad, I promise, just…”

He paused, glancing over at Atem and Yuugi as they retrieved their suitcases from the conveyor.

“It’s… Family stuff,” he decided.

“Oh, um, alright then,” Mokuba replied, frowning slightly in confusion.

“Hey, Seto! Catch!”

Before Kaiba even had time to process the shout, something heavy suddenly hit him square in the back. He let out an almost comically startled “Oof!” as he was suddenly knocked to the ground, a duffle bag lying at his feet, followed immediately by mischievous cackling.

“Atem! That wasn’t very nice!” Yuugi gasped, running over to help Kaiba up. “Are you alright, Kaiba-kun?”

“I’m fine, which is more than I’ll be able to say for him in a few minutes,” Kaiba grunted as he stood up.

Atem laughed. “Sure, sure. Hey, by the way, are you doing anything this Saturday?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

Kaiba begrudgingly brushed off his pants and raised an eyebrow at Atem. “Not that I know of, why?”

“Bakura and I are gonna look through the museum storage, see if they got any of my old stuff,” Atem explained. “Do you want to come?”

“Woah, woah, wait a minute!” Yuugi interrupted. “You told me you two were gonna build Gundams! You never said anything about robbing the museum!” he exclaimed in shock.

Atem went silent for a moment.

“...Bakura and I are going to build Gundams,” he repeated cheerfully. “Do you want to come?”

Yuugi smacked his forehead in disbelief. “Really?  _ Really?” _

“I wanna build Gundams,” Mokuba butted in innocently, bouncing slightly with excitement.

Kaiba shook his head. “No, Mokuba. You’re too young to build Gundams.”

“Aww, why?!”

“Yeah, they’re, uh… They’re sexy Gundams,” Atem decided with a nod. “Not for kids.”

“I’m telling mom,” Yuugi announced in flat disdain.

Atem gasped. “No, wait! Aibou, no!” he exclaimed, shaking his head rapidly- But it was too late, as Yuugi began walking away, towards the group that had yet to notice them.

“Moooom-”

“Aibou..!”

“-Atem said him and Bakura-kun are gonna rob a museum and he told Mokuba they’re going to build sexually explicit Gundams so he won’t try to tag along-”

“I was joking! We’re not actually building Gundams, I swear! ...Uh, wait, no, I meant-”

Kaiba shook his head in disbelief as he watched the two of them run off, creating distant spiky-haired silhouettes that were familiar to the deepest reaches of his soul. No, more than just familiar… They _ belonged. _ All of a sudden, things just felt… Right.

“Saturday, then,” he said to himself with a slow nod. “Come on, Mokuba. Let’s go home.”


End file.
